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Time is the only real currency we have

blog.theboringtech.io

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Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#191

Post by kgwgk »

keiferski wrote: post #11

I’ve often wondered what society would look like if optimized for saving people time. Just some quick thoughts: - Crosswalks and traffic lights would become non-existent and replaced with more pedestrian overpasses, turning/merging lanes, and other designs. Waiting for the light to change is a huge waste of time for both pedestrians and drivers. It seems like we might get this eventually with self-driving cars. - Min…

> Minimization of waiting rooms. If your appointment will be delayed, you’ll be informed of it ahead of time via SMS.

That would be great! Then I can keep working until the last minute and, if no SMS was received, teleport myself directly into the doctor’s office.

> Time slots are strictly enforced to avoid overlap.

Then everyone will be scheduled, and charged, much more time than the expected duration of a consultation.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#192

Post by WWLink »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #81
dhruvkar wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Where? Would love to know how to get access to this.

At least some of the Ahold Delhaize subsidiaries (Food Lion, Hannaford, Giant, Stop&Shop) have handheld scanner kiosks you can checkout when you enter. I know Giant and Stop&Shop also offer a smartphone app that operates the same way as the kiosk units using your smartphone camera to scan. I've seen the kiosk system at Kroger in the midwest. Sam's Club offers a mobile app scanner. Perhaps it's just the places I frequ…

The Kroger stores I go to always have that, but they always seem to shut it down around 6pm, and I get off work at 7pm, so it's kinda useless to me haha.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#193

Post by WalterBright »

Barrin92 wrote: post #188
acituan wrote: post #186

I hate this framing. It is pressuring, dehumanizing as it contextualizes human endeavor in transactional terms, usually in a market. I know this goes against the ethos of high-tech, but humans don't have an imperative to be as productive as possible. They don't have to make the most use of their time. They don't have to get as efficient as they could. These are metrics that work fine for our machines, our code. But h…

Yep. This attitude of being your own little manager of your own life and treating it like an incremental game is horrible. In James P. Carse's Finite and Infinite Games there one chapter on how the use of machines works both ways. It doesn't only shape the machine but it makes the person more 'machine-like'. In an attempt to operate a machine the person has itself to act mechanical and to comply with the interface of…

> In an attempt to operate a machine the person has itself to act mechanical and to comply with the interface of the machine rather than the other way around.

I remember an article a while back where archaeologists examined the bones of pre-Columbian women in America. The bones showed the signs of long term debilitating, repetitive work from kneeling and grinding, by hand, corn into flour.

Just last night I watched an American Experience episode on the guy who revolutionized wheat farming. He spent his youth on a farm, harvesting corn by hand, estimating that he'd harvested 1 million ears per season by himself. He was amazed at how wonderful it was to get a machine that mechanized corn harvesting.

I'd much rather mow my lawn with a mower than a pair of scissors.

In the 1960s, my dad was writing a book. My mom would type up the drafts for him. Every new draft meant my mom would spend hours banging it out on the typewriter. Think how much easier that is today with our "dehumanizing" computers. Can you imagine today typing the whole thing over again because you made a misteak?

Machines have largely free'd us from dehumanizing labor, not caused it.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#194

Post by noiv »

Check out the work of Carlo Rovelli and start considering time as a human construct. It is not needed to explain the world and physics around us. Isn't framing time as a currency while proposing it as part of the universe just an attempt of fraud? It feels like getting offered shiny glass beads while taking things of real value.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#195

Post by lisper »

kazinator wrote: post #187
lisper wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very hard to give short examples because for any short example you can find another language that does the same thing with similar effort. For example, this: https://edicl.github.io/cl-who/ is basically PHP embedded in Common Lisp. So any example I give you to show how cool CL-WHO is you could render it in PHP and conclude that PHP is similarly cool. The Big Win only happens if you want to combine a feature that…

No, it's actually very hard to give large examples. You're not going to replace a million lines of C with a 1000 lines of Lisp, unless something crazy is going on, like most of that million lines is completely the wrong code for the requirements at hand. Or it solves a huge problem X, which includes small subproblem Y; and in the Lisp program we only care about Y. Small examples are easy: for instance, some one-liner…

> You're not going to replace a million lines of C with a 1000 lines of Lisp

Maybe not, but it's quite plausible to replace a million lines of VHDL with 1000 lines of a DSL embedded in Lisp.

But 1000x win is unusual. Usually it's closer to 10x. But that's still a bigger win than you're going to get by learning to type faster.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#196

Post by folli »

WalterBright wrote: post #193
Barrin92 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. This attitude of being your own little manager of your own life and treating it like an incremental game is horrible. In James P. Carse's Finite and Infinite Games there one chapter on how the use of machines works both ways. It doesn't only shape the machine but it makes the person more 'machine-like'. In an attempt to operate a machine the person has itself to act mechanical and to comply with the interface of…

> In an attempt to operate a machine the person has itself to act mechanical and to comply with the interface of the machine rather than the other way around. I remember an article a while back where archaeologists examined the bones of pre-Columbian women in America. The bones showed the signs of long term debilitating, repetitive work from kneeling and grinding, by hand, corn into flour. Just last night I watched a…

Not everything is a dichotomy. Technology has certainly massively improved our lives, but that doesn't mean one cannot point out that there are also drawbacks.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#197

Post by WalterBright »

keiferski wrote: post #11

I’ve often wondered what society would look like if optimized for saving people time. Just some quick thoughts: - Crosswalks and traffic lights would become non-existent and replaced with more pedestrian overpasses, turning/merging lanes, and other designs. Waiting for the light to change is a huge waste of time for both pedestrians and drivers. It seems like we might get this eventually with self-driving cars. - Min…

> I’ve often wondered what society would look like if optimized for saving people time.

It would look like what it is today. Sure, there are still inefficiencies, but we have a high standard of living because it is optimized for time. For example, it used to be that 95% of people worked on the farm to raise enough food. Now it's like 2%. Nobody spends time anymore making cloth, which used to be the bulk of "women's work".

> Or just skip shopping in person and order everything via delivery

Isn't that what we do now? I've been doing nearly all my shopping online since long before this quarantine, exactly because it's a huge time saver. I think I visited the mall once in the last year, and that was for a social reason, not shopping.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#199

Post by WalterBright »

keiferski wrote: post #11

I’ve often wondered what society would look like if optimized for saving people time. Just some quick thoughts: - Crosswalks and traffic lights would become non-existent and replaced with more pedestrian overpasses, turning/merging lanes, and other designs. Waiting for the light to change is a huge waste of time for both pedestrians and drivers. It seems like we might get this eventually with self-driving cars. - Min…

> Waiting for the light to change is a huge waste of time for both pedestrians and drivers

That's because it's designed and run by the government, which has no interest in saving time.

How many hours do we all waste waiting for a light to change when there's no cross traffic? having a "platoon" of cars come to a halt to let one car cross? having a light turn yellow at the last moment to slam on the brakes? How much gas has this cost, too?

By mounting cameras on the lights and a little AI programming, and an optimization algorithm, I bet the lights could be a major factor in reducing gas consumption, smoothing traffic flow, reducing accidents, and saving time.

In fact, the AI could be self-learning, like the fuel injection systems on cars.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#200

Post by jmeister »

acituan wrote: post #186

I hate this framing. It is pressuring, dehumanizing as it contextualizes human endeavor in transactional terms, usually in a market. I know this goes against the ethos of high-tech, but humans don't have an imperative to be as productive as possible. They don't have to make the most use of their time. They don't have to get as efficient as they could. These are metrics that work fine for our machines, our code. But h…

Counter-point:

Kobe(RIP) on having time for friends:

“I have "like minds." You know, I've been fortunate to play in Los Angeles, where there are a lot of people like me. Actors. Musicians. Businessmen. Obsessives. People who feel like God put them on earth to do whatever it is that they do. Now, do we have time to build great relationships? Do we have time to build great friendships? No. Do we have time to socialize and to hangout aimlessly? No. Do we want to do that? No. We want to work. I enjoy working.”

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